‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ is wreaking havoc on the box office. It has everything we desire in a movie, including excellent music, a tragic/funny narrative, and Russell Crowe as a Greek deity. Recently, the ‘Gladiator’ actor revealed that Taika had him re-shoot all of the sequences twice, which we’d say implies that Russell should be paid twice as well, but that’s alright.
Russell was determined to play Zeus with a Greek accent, which is understandable given that he is, after all, a Greek deity. On the other hand, Taika insisted on filming each sequence twice because he wanted him to have a British accent.
Russell Crowe Filmed All Of His Zeus Scenes In “Thor: Love And Thunder” Twice
Russell Crowe’s use of a Greek accent as Zeus in ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ may seem obvious now, but director Taika Waititi was not so sure while the movie was being filmed. In fact, Crowe rehearsed all of his scenes twice, first with a Greek accent and then with a British one.
“We actually talked at length about the accent,” he stated. “We wondered if someone did a Greek accent of a Greek god, is it going to be a farce? Will it be too silly?”
Crowe, on the other hand, was a firm believer in portraying the deity as having a Greek accent. Waititi came up with a compromise, so to speak.
“We ended up doing two versions of every take with Russell,” he said. “One in a Greek accent and then another in a British accent. Because I felt people would think Zeus would sound British like Laurence Olivier in ‘Clash of the Titans’.”
Since Laurence played Zeus in ‘Clash of the Titans’ (1981), a movie that became almost impossible to forget, Taika thought, “people would think Zeus would sound British,” just like the famous actor.
Waititi In the End Realized And Went With Greek Accent
As soon as the post-production stage arrived, it was time to settle on a solution. That’s when Waititi came to a realization: “It’s actually more offensive to the Greeks to have Zeus sound like he’s British.”
“It’s actually more offensive to the Greeks to have Zeus sound like he’s British,” he said. “And test audiences loved the Greek accent. I’m really happy with it. But, yeah, he had to do every take once in the Greek accent and once with a British accent because I couldn’t make up my mind. But Russell was right all along.”
Read More: ‘Thor: Love And Thunder’ Depicts Zeus As A Sniveling Coward But Comics Tell A Different Story
